


Nothing Serious

by Threshie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood and Injury, Brother Feels, Brotherly Angst, Childhood Memories, Crying, Dean Winchester Whump, Everyone Needs A Hug, First Aid, Gen, Gentleness, Guilty Sam Winchester, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Past Child Abuse, Podfic Welcome, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester Takes Care of Dean Winchester, Touchy-Feely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 13:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16556837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Threshie/pseuds/Threshie
Summary: After several hunts that end in injuries, Sam realizes Dean thinks he deserves it when he gets hurt, and that it ties back to John.





	Nothing Serious

“There we go, you’ll be okay.” Dean sat back and smiled — a sight that kept swaying to the side for Sam, with the heavy painkillers in his system. This last hunt had been a messy one, and Sam had taken a werewolf claw swipe straight across the chest. Dean had come through a window to save him, scraping up his arm and shoulder in the process.

Maybe it was just the painkillers talking, but Sam felt like something was wrong with this picture. Dean had wasted no time stitching and bandaging Sam’s wound and bundling him into bed, but his own wounds were still bleeding down his arm.

“Dean,” Sam tried, frowning wearily up at him. His brother put a hand on his shoulder, reassuring.

“I’m right here, Sammy. You’re okay, we’re in the motel now.”

“What about you?” Sam couldn’t quite make the words come out right. He was so damned tired. “You okay?”

Dean glanced down at his arm and shrugged, dismissive. 

“It’s nothing serious. You have it way worse.” He leaned further and ran a hand over Sam’s hair, smoothing it down like he used to do a lifetime ago whenever Sam skinned his knees or bumped his head. It was such a familiar, reassuring thing. Sam let his eyes fall closed, sighing slowly.

This reminded him of something else, another memory, but he couldn’t focus to remember what. It felt like nostalgia, but usually nostalgia was about a fond memory, and this… 

It was something bad.  


* * *

  
For weeks, Sam had written that evening off as a delirious dream. When he’d come to the next day, Dean had bandaged his shoulder up, and insisted he didn’t need any sort of painkillers. He’d winced occasionally, but seemed able to function, so Sam had let him be. Dean was always the most focused on whether Sam was safe and okay, and so he figured his brother was just too fixated on helping him to treat his own injury with much concern.

Today, though, this hunt, Sam had barely been hurt. Dean, on the other hand, had been flung through a glass-topped coffee table, and he had little cuts and scrapes all over his torso, front and back. Cuts he was currently ignoring while he swigged a beer over by the wet bar in their motel room.

“Dean,” Sam said, frowning. “You’re bleeding. Aren’t you gonna at least make sure there’s no glass left in the cuts?”

“I’ve been killed enough times to recognize life-threatening injuries by now, Sam,” Dean tossed back, taking another swig of his beer. He cringed a little when he lifted his arm, though. 

Sam sighed, about to protest again. He looked up quick, though, when his brother stepped over and touched his temple. 

“Sure, you’re not hurt,” Dean said, raising an eyebrow. He sat his beer aside, going to pull out the first aid kit while Sam frowned and dabbed at the blood on his temple. He hardly felt more than a dull stinging, must have taken one of the table shards as it flew past him. It was hardly as bad as Dean’s cuts. 

“Have a seat, Sammy, I’ll get you patched up.”

“This doesn’t even really count,” Sam said, but sat down on the side of the bed as Dean asked. He watched his brother unhappily while he dabbed at Sam’s temple and brow with a bit of gauze and peroxide. 

It actually stung a bit more with someone messing with it, but all Sam could focus on right now was Dean’s subtle wincing whenever he flexed his back. The cuts bled sluggishly through his flannel shirt, tiny slices in the soft fabric, and Sam wanted to smack his hand away and tell him to take care of himself first.

“How about that Rugaru, though, huh?” Dean said, smiling like he wasn’t literally injured and bleeding on the motel bedspread. 

“Dean, you should patch yourself up first,” Sam countered, brows knitting further in worry. “Or…or let me, okay? Don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt, I can see you wincing.”

Dean’s smile faded for a moment, and he blinked, then shrugged. 

“So? It’s nothing serious, Sammy, I’ll live.”

Sam blinked back, that terrible feeling of nostalgia in the negative coming back to him. Something about the way Dean said that...

_Dean stood by the door of some dingy motel room, no older than ten, blood dripping from one hand and the other wrapped around it. There were tears on his cheeks, but he didn’t make a sound, had his back half-turned._

_“Look at me, Sammy. It’s okay, you’re okay.” John’s voice was soft and tender with him. Sam obediently turned his chin up, and saw his father dabbing gently at his face. Familiar spots — his temple, his brow._

_“Dean’s hurt,” he told Dad, his little six-year-old voice shaking. Something had gone very wrong — Sam didn’t hunt yet at this age. Something had gone wrong, and he’d been hurt, and he couldn’t remember what happened, but he did remember that John considered it Dean’s fault._

_“It’s nothing serious,” their Dad said, his tone hardening. “He’ll live.”_

_From the door, Sam heard a tiny sob._

“Sam?”

Sam blinked and found himself in the present again, in another motel room. Dean was looking at him worriedly, a tube of ointment in one hand and a piece of gauze poised in the other to dab at Sam’s head. 

“Thought this was a glass cut. Did you take a hit to the head you’re not telling me about?” He asked. “You’re spacin’ out.”

Sam hated how much he looked like the memory of their father, doing the same first aid, using the same gentle tone.

Disregarding Dean’s injuries just the same.

When Dean went to dab the ointment onto his temple, Sam pushed his hand away.

“No,” he said, standing. “You’re way worse off than me, and I’m gonna patch you up first.”

Dean stood, too, and started to laugh, about to make some snarky reply. He caught the dead serious look on Sam’s face, though, and fell silent again.

“It’s just a few cuts, Sam. Really, it’s nothing serious,” he repeated, and Sam cringed as he heard John saying it along with him in his head.

“Just sit down, Dean.” Sam’s tone left no room for argument. Dean sat, now looking a little uncomfortable.

“What’s up with you? We’ve been beat up a million times and you were always okay with me getting around to patching myself up when I felt like it before,” he pointed out. 

Sam felt a pang of guilt as he realized that his brother was right. Now that he was thinking back, he could recall at least a dozen times they were both hurt and John had completely ignored Dean — even told him a time or two that he screwed up, so he deserved it. And Sam wasn’t responsible for what their Dad did, but he’d never broken the cycle, either — Dean always prioritized patching Sam up first and himself second. He always skipped the painkillers and just had some whiskey instead.

“Not today,” Sam said, taking hold of Dean’s flannel shirt sleeves and drawing them down off of his shoulders one by one. Dean again looked like he wanted to argue, maybe that he could take his shirts off himself, but he let Sam do it. He was definitely more confused than annoyed.

The gray T-shirt he wore underneath the flannel was peppered with small bloody cuts and stains. Sam frowned at it, placing a careful hand on Dean’s shoulder and half turning him to look down at his back. He bit his lip. There was a bigger slice down one side of Dean’s back, the blood soaking into the hem of his jeans. No wonder he’d been wincing when he moved too much.

There didn’t appear to be any glass shards sticking out of the wounds, so Sam sat back and grabbed the scissors from the first aid kit. Dean again started to laugh.

“Dude. I can take my shirt off, I’m not immobilized here.”

“It’s ruined anyway,” Sam said briskly, grabbing the hem and starting to cut the shirt open up the front. “And you’re wincing every time you raise your arms, so don’t do it, Dean.”

A heavy silence followed, Dean watching the scissors as they approached his face. Sam carefully held the neck of the shirt away from him as he cut it, and when he leaned closer to draw the sleeves down as gently as he could, he caught his brother swallowing hard.

Sam couldn’t remember a single time John had comforted Dean when he was hurt. He could think of dozens of times the man had reassured him, soothed him. 

_“It’s okay, Sammy.”_

_“You’re safe now, son.”_

_“Don’t look, Sam. Just close your eyes.”_

He looked at his brother, whose green eyes were fixed on the first aid kit guiltily like this was all too much to ask. It probably felt wrong tending to him when he hadn’t finishing bandaging Sam’s injury up, no matter how tiny.

Sam touched his shoulder lightly, careful to avoid any cuts. 

“It’s okay, Dean. I’ve got this,” he said gently. “Your back’s got the biggest cut, so turn around, okay?”

Dean seemed so completely caught off-guard by the reassurance that he didn’t laugh or joke or anything. Looking so, so young, he kept his gaze fixed down on the bed and turned his back to Sam.

“Okay, sure.”

Sam grabbed the forgotten beer from the bedstand and handed it and some pain pills to him. No words needed to be said there; Dean took the pills without any protest at all, and Sam took the beer away again just as fast. Once his brother stopped protesting being treated first, he seemed willing to humor Sam’s first aid efforts by doing whatever was asked of him.

Sam worked quickly, but carefully, dabbing blood off of all of the cuts on Dean’s back. None were deep enough to need stitches, which was just dumb luck with how hard he’d fallen. There was a purple and yellow bruise darkening down Dean’s right side as well, big enough to cover all of his ribs. The biggest cut was just along the edge of it — Sam thought maybe the bruise was from the solid wooden frame of the table.

He put ointment on the dozen or so cuts on Dean’s back, then carefully taped gauze over the bigger ones, and put bandaids over the tiniest. When he was done, he touched his brother’s shoulder again, very lightly.

“Okay, looking good. Turn around, I’ll get the rest.”

“Sam…” Dean turned around slowly, and he seemed almost afraid to look Sam in the eye. He’d made the connection too, Sam realized. He knew why Sam was doing this. 

“Look at me, Dean,” he said, and uncertain green eyes rose to meet his hazel. 

Sam hoped he could see it, how sorry he was — how he’d never thought any of it was Dean’s fault. If he tried to argue that point, he was sure Dean would just disagree with him. He’d done it before. So Sam put it in a way his brother might believe.

“When you’re hurt it hurts me,” he said, sincerely, sadly. Dean could have jumped on him with a joke about being a sap, but he didn’t.

“Sorry,” he said, guiltily again. “I’ll do a better job next time, won’t get so cut up—”

“Screwing up doesn’t mean you deserve this,” Sam insisted. As he expected, Dean started to shake his head immediately. “You wouldn’t let me bleed, even if I wanted it,” Sam countered, frowning. “Don’t ask me to do that with you. I’m serious — it hurts.” 

Swimming in memories of John and their incredibly unfair, unequal treatment, it really did hurt. It also made Sam want to punch his father, but that was no longer an option. 

Dean closed his eyes like he was warding off the words, and swallowed hard.

“Okay.” He nodded a little. “Okay, I-I’m sorry. You’re right.” 

Sam’s heart ached at that soft, guilty tone. Dean put so much upon his own shoulders, and he did it because John had done it first. 

“It’s okay.” 

Sam cleaned and dressed the cuts on Dean’s chest and arms in silence. Dean, now that he’d dredged up memories of their Dad, kept swallowing and looking down at his hands, hunching up his shoulders to be smaller. Finally, the last bandage was taped in place, and Sam sat the first aid kit aside. 

“How’s the pain?” He tried to catch Dean’s gaze, but his brother avoided his eyes now.

“Fine,” he mumbled. 

Sam looked at him, bandaged and bruised, head ducked down like he might be hit, and he couldn’t hold the guilt in anymore.

“Dean, I-I’m so sorry.” His brother’s head rose at the choked tone, and Sam reached and gripped his arm, avoiding the injuries. “You’re right — we’ve been hurt so many times. And you take care of me every time, like you always do, and nobody takes care of you. I-I should’ve…I should’ve noticed sooner.”

His eyes were wet, and Dean was pulling him into a hug, bandages and all. 

“I’m okay, Sammy. I promise,” he murmured near Sam’s ear, a hand in his hair. Sam sniffled and hugged around his waist on only one side, avoiding the bruises. He pressed his cheek to Dean’s mussed hair.

“Y-you’re not the problem, Dean. Never have been,” he said. Dean’s fingers combed through Sam’s hair slowly, his other arm hugged around his brother’s back. It felt safe, the way Dean always felt to him. Sam wondered if Dean felt safe, too. “I’m gonna take better care of you,” he promised. “I-I know you don’t think it’s my job, but I don’t care.”

“We’ll take care of each other,” Dean agreed, hugging him closer. Sam couldn’t see his face, but he was pretty sure he sounded choked up, too. The memories of tiny, near-silent sobs from the motel door came back to Sam, and he cried harder.

“D-Dad didn’t even help you! You were bleeding, and he just…h-how could he do that?” 

“Shh, okay,” Dean whispered, resting his chin on Sam’s shoulder. The hand in his hair slid down to cradle the back of his neck protectively. “That was a long time ago, Sammy. It’s over, it’s okay.”

Sam sucked in a deep breath, then another, calming himself down. He wanted to cling to Dean tighter, but holding him too tight right now would only hurt him. Instead, the younger brother drew back enough to meet Dean’s eyes. Tears shone back at him.

“C’mon, please,” Dean murmured, trying to smile through it as he touched Sam’s cheek. “When you’re hurt it hurts me, too.”

Sam closed his eyes and sighed slow and shaky.

“It was a long time ago,” he whispered, “But that doesn’t make it okay.”

“You're right,” Dean murmured, drawing Sam down to rest their foreheads against each other. With his other hand, he rubbed his brother’s back gently. “But Dad’s gone, Sam. It's over.”

Sam shook his head.

“Not until you stop...punishing yourself.” He couldn’t even look up as he said it — he focused on the bandage he’d taped to Dean’s shoulder. Blood was slowly staining through the center. “You don’t deserve to be hurt, Dean. You don’t.”

“Painkillers and patching up first thing,” his brother promised, and he sounded like he meant it. “I might forget, so you gotta help me, okay?”

Sam looked at him finally, saw earnest sincerity in his eyes, and nodded. That’s all he wanted to do — to help Dean, the way Dean always helped him.

“I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading my fic! I hope you enjoyed the angst and whump and brothers understanding one another a little better. Dean's childhood hurts my heart. Comments and kudos make my day! ♥


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